More than half of UK businesses (54 percent) plan to employ a chief IoT officer within the next year.This is especially so in the education (63 percent), retail (63 percent) and telecomms (64 percent) sectors, research commissioned by cybersecurity specialist Webroot and data centre organisation IO has revealed.

With a year of steady growth, new partnerships, a new online consumer education initiative and augmented security for Z-Wave IoT devices, the Z-Wave Alliance announces year-end milestones. Since the beginning of 2015, the Z-Wave ecosystem has seen almost 100 new member companies, the addition of 250 certified devices and another 15 million smart home devices shipped into the marketplace.Parks Associates data shows that 1 in 5 consumers in the US currently own smart home devices with global growth on the rise and residential connected devices will generate approximately 11 million support requests from consumers. With that in mind, the Z-Wave Alliance and its members are increasingly looking at how to best educate, serve and support new users coming into the smart home market. Launching Z-Wave.com, the consumer portal for tips, best practices and frequently asked questions about Z-Wave smart home solutions, the Alliance’s Consumer Working Group is working to give consumers tools to find the best possible smart home solution for their lives.

LittleBits is a snap-together line of components designed to make learning about and experimenting with electronics easy for both kids and adults. They’re typically sold in kits designed to provide accessible packages for education, like the Base$99.00 at Amazon and Gizmos & Gadgets kits$199.95 at Amazon we reviewed. The Smart Home Kit ($249) is a bit different, and much more fascinating for tinkerers, or anyone interested in playing with home automation and network control. It still has plenty for children 8 and up to learn with, but the crown-jewel component, the CloudBit, really opens it up to some fascinating experimentation for experienced users.

The movement to connect everything to everything else just got a big supporter: the White House.The White House announced this week a national campaign to boost the research, development and deployment of systems to support smart cities and the Internet of Things — the conceptual connection of objects to one vast network. The efforts are immense: The National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology are kicking in $45 million; a group of five federal departments and agencies are adding another $115 million; 20 cities are partnering with local higher education institutions; and a cornucopia of organizations are issuing challenges and conducting their own, smaller projects to support the larger campaign.

The demand for microgrids is growing — not only for military applications, but also in the commercial, government, health care, education, industrial, and other sectors. GTM Research recently forecast that cumulative investments in U.S. microgrids from 2015 through 2020 will surpass $3.5 billion. By then, the U.S. will be home to an estimated 2.8 gigawatts of total microgrid capacity, a 127 percent cumulative capacity increase from 2015 numbers.